Bent Road - Lori Roy [64]
Celia starts to speak but Floyd holds up a finger to silence her.
“Ray, he wasn’t home like I said.” And then facing Mary Robison, she says, “I don’t know that he did anything, Mary. I don’t know. But he wasn’t home like he told Floyd. He wasn’t home like I said.”
Floyd nods as if he’s always known.
“I’m so sorry, Mary,” Ruth says. “I’m just so sorry.”
Evie slowly opens her closet door so that it doesn’t make any sound. Then she squats and crawls under the coats and dresses that Aunt Ruth brought when she first moved into Evie’s room. The clothes smell like Aunt Ruth and, for a moment, Evie thinks Mama and Daddy and Aunt Ruth are home. She wiggles backward out of the closet and listens. They don’t usually go out on a school night. Mama said they wouldn’t be late and that Evie should mind Daniel and Elaine. Evie frowns to think she has to mind Daniel. Waiting until she is sure the house is quiet, she crawls back under the low-hanging hemlines, coughs as she reaches for the extra blankets that Mama stores in the closet, and so that they don’t come unfolded, she pulls them out slowly, one hand on the bottom, the other on top. Next she drags out the box of photo albums that can’t be stored in the basement because they might mildew and there, behind it all, she finds her hatbox. She pulls it from the dark corner, sits crisscross in front of it and, after checking the door one last time, she lifts off the lid.
“This is my favorite,” Evie whispers, taking the perfume bottle from the box with two fingers.
The creamy white bottle has a short belly and a tall, thin stopper decorated with tiny red roses. Evie pulls out the stopper, and even though the bottle is empty, she smells Aunt Eve.
“I’m always afraid I’ll break it,” she says, and setting the stopper back in the bottle, she places it on top of the stack of blankets.
Dragging the box farther out of the corner and wrapping her legs around it, Evie takes out the picture of Aunt Eve and Uncle Ray and props it up on the closet floor. Next, she pulls out a compact, a brush and a hand mirror—all decorated with the same red roses—and lays them on top of the blankets. She took all four from Aunt Eve’s room on the same day, but the pink heart-shaped brooch and purple scarf with gold stitching that she removes next, she took one at a time on separate days. Last, she slips one hand into the box and slides it under a carefully folded blue dress. She wiggles her fingers in the soft ruffles and rests her other hand on top of the dress, the silk sash feeling cool and smooth. Lifting the dress from the box, she takes it by each shoulder, holds it to her neck and lets it drape down her front as she stands.
“It’s too long,” Evie whispers, slipping the dress over her head and threading her arms through each sleeve.
The blue silky skirt flutters against her bare toes and the waist falls past her hips. At the neckline, six inches of blue piping left unstitched hang from the dress and the shoulder seam is torn because she tripped over the dress when Daddy and Uncle Ray were fighting. Evie gathers up the low hanging waist and ties it off in the proper place with the silk sash. The feathery sleeves tickle her elbows. Looking down, she thinks the dress is short enough, but without Mama’s help, Evie can’t do anything about the wide, torn neckline that slips off her shoulders or the dangling trim. Mama would pin it all up with safety pins, like she does the Halloween costumes that are too big, but Evie can’t ask Mama for help.
“It’ll be fine,” she says. “Just fine.”
Sitting in the backseat of Arthur’s car, Ruth recognizes the throb in her shoulder and the lopsided way her coat hangs. It’s probably dislocated, has happened before. She lets her bad arm lie at her side and, sliding down in the backseat of the station wagon, she slips her good hand inside her jacket so she can feel her little girl. She hasn’t told anyone that she can feel Elisabeth kicking or that she has named her baby. She deserved a name. From the moment Ruth felt she was a girl, Elisabeth deserved